This invention concerns a new chemical process for making organic silanes having alkoxy or aryloxy substituents, also named as organic silyl ethers. Such ethers have various uses. Monomeric ethers of this type are valuable functional fluids while polymeric ethers preparable by this process are useful moldable plastics.
Silyl ethers have been made in the past by reacting an organic silyl halide with an alcohol or phenol in the presence of an acid acceptor. Other silyl reagents such as hexaalkyldisiloxanes, dialkylaminodialkylsilanes, and organocyclosilazanes have been used in this kind of reaction. Organic halides have been reacted with alkoxysilyl halides in the presence of metallic sodium to make the corresponding silyl ethers. These processes have various disadvantages such as high reaction temperatures, strongly basic or acidic reaction mixtures, and the production of salt by-products that have to be separated from the silyl ether product.
The reaction of certain mixed aryl alkyl carbonates with an organic halide to produce an aromatic ether is described in my copending application entitled "Process for Making Aromatic Ethers", Ser. No. 187,688, filed Sept. 16, 1980. It is also known that a trimethylsilyl halide reacts with a cyclic alkylene carbonate to make a halogenated silyl ether, see Kricheldorf, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (Engl.) 18, 689 (1979).